Does ZARA not want my money?!
Background
Project type: bootcamp case study (May 2023)
Role: UX Designer
NOTE: This case study was originally completed in May 2023. Whilst fine-tuning this case study (October 2023), the ZARA website has made some UI changes. So, points discussed in this case study may not apply to the current ZARA website.
Design Process:
Discover - Understand the Problem
Define - Define the Problem
Develop - Develop Possible Solutions
Deliver - Choose and Develop the Solution
The Problem
Customers are failing to complete the online shopping journey on the ZARA website.
Picture yourself coming home after a long, dreary day of work. It’s late. You’re tired, exhausted actually.
Wanting to forget about the day you decide to indulge in some quick, late night, retail therapy. You grab your laptop, open up ZARA, and start browsing. Excitement builds as you browse through countless items, thinking about all the events you could wear your new outfits. But, that excitement slowly fades…
You struggle to find the search bar. You struggle to quickly add items to your wish list. When you’re finally ready to review your wish list, you struggle to find the wish list page.
What should’ve been a straightforward activity has turned into a painstaking and frustrating experience. In the end, you close the website and head straight to bed.
The above experience is common for many ZARA shoppers. The difficulty navigating the website combined with the frustration and disappointment that arises, leads to consumers closing the website and not completing the online shopping journey. This ultimately results in fewer online sales for the company, a significant concern in a period where online shopping is surpassing retail, and customer loyalty hangs in the balance.
The question is how might we redesign/improve the ZARA website to make it more user-friendly, and encourage consumers (both new and existing) to complete the online shopping journey. If the redesign is successful, it will ultimately result in an increase in online sale, leading to increased revenue, for the company.
Competitor Analysis
Functionality and aesthetics are equally important.
A competitor analysis was conducted to research and analyse the strengths and weaknesses of competitors within the ecommerce market.
The competitors (H&M, ASOS and Urban Outfitters) placed equal importance on both the look and user experience of the website. Whereas ZARA’s importance was solely placed on the overall editorial look of the website.
Sample size: 5
Gender: all Female
Age: 17-45
User Research
Red Route Analysis
I conducted a red route analysis to identify the most important tasks users undertake whilst navigating the ZARA website. This helped to identify potential pain points users may face. It also gave me a starting point on how I could redesign ZARA’s website to help improve the user experience.
User Interviews
The intention for undertaking user interviews was to find out user opinions of the ZARA website and how easy/difficult they found navigating through the website.
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When shopping online, what is the first thing you do?
What features are important to you when shopping online?
Do you shop on the ZARA website?
If you do, what do you like/dislike about the website?
If you don’t, why don’t you shop on the ZARA website?
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Spend some time browsing through the website until you find an item that you like.
Can you show me how to add that item to your wishlist?
Can you show me how to view your wishlist?
On a scale of 1-5, how did you find the navigation of the website?
Scale: 1 (very difficult) - 5 (very easy)
Results from my user interviews can be found here.
Insights
Conducting user interviews helped me gain both qualitative and quantitative insights on the users’ experience navigating the ZARA website. In general…
Users want
A website that is easy to navigate.
A website that operates in a similar way to other e-commerce websites.
To spend less time finding the wish list page on the website.
Redesigning the ZARA website based on the above insights will reduce the frustrations customers currently experience and pave the way for streamlined and quicker navigation - ultimately leading to an improved and enjoyable user experience. Redesigning the ZARA website so it operates similarly to other sites within the ecommerce market will make it easier for new customers to browse and purchase from ZARA. All of this will result in increased customer satisfaction and higher sales and revenue for the company.
Ideation
Crazy 8s
Crazy 8s with a “mobile first” approach. This was done to quickly generate possible page layouts.
Wireframes
Low-fidelity
Mid-fidelity
The Solution
A seamless website navigation is key to £££!
Style Guide
Measuring Success
To measure the success of the solutions I designed, the following metrics could be considered:
Customer reviews - to see whether the views of the general public have been positive since the changes.
Time spent on the website - an increase in the time spent on the website tends to indicate improved user engagement and interest in the brand.
Task success rate (wish list) - a decrease in the time it takes users to find the wish list suggests the change has improved user efficiency.
Net promoter score (NPS) - an increase in NPS suggests the changes have positively impacted the users and increases the likelihood of the ZARA website being recommended to others.
Revenue - increased revenue indicates that the users are able to complete the online shopping journey without experiencing the frustrations that occurred prior to the changes.
Reflection
First time using Figma - using Figma for the first time came with a huge learning curve. In hindsight, I should have spent more time learning and understanding the features that Figma has which would’ve made my design process easier (and quicker).
Personal bias - it was interesting to see how easy it was for personal bias to creep in. Completing this case study made me understand how important it is to be objective and to remember you are designing for USERS.
Limited Sample Size - the design decisions I made were influenced from the results of my 5 research participants. I acknowledge the fact that my design decisions could have been very different if I had a larger sample size.
User feedback and A/B testing - due to time constraints I didn’t manage to gain any user feedback or do any A/B testing on my designs. User feedback and A/B testing will help ensure the final implemented solutions are user-centric.